Online dating 10 years ago vs. today

(Meredith) -- Can you believe 2005 was just over a decade ago? Just over a decade ago the White Sox had won the world series, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had just gotten together, Green Day and Mariah Carey were topping the charts, and online dating was just gaining steam.

OkCupid has been asking its users questions about love, dating, and sex since 2005, and they just released a summary comparing the results from 2015 to the results from 2005. So how has the dating scene changed over the last 10 years or so? Let’s look at the numbers.

Would you consider sleeping with someone on the first date?

At first glance, it seems that fewer people today are likely to sleep with someone on the first date — 19 percent fewer — but remember that in 2005 the online dating scene was a lot smaller. There was no Tinder or many of the other dating sites geared toward more casual dating. So it’s possible that in recent years OkCupid has just drawn a more conservative crowd, and more promiscuous daters have found their way to other datings sites.

Regardless of future plans, what’s more interesting to you right now?

Regardless of the number of previous partners, OkCupid users are mostly interested in love (75%), and they have been since 2005. It’s a little bit surprising that that this number is exactly the same 10 years later, but it’s nice to see some consistency in the OkCupid dating scene. It also suggests that OkCupid’s more promiscuous daters haven’t actually migrated to other sites. Whether it’s 2005 or 2015, OkCupid users are looking for love.

Is there such thing as having too many sex partners?

This is one of the biggest changes in the survey. OkCupid users today are less likely to judge someone based on their number of previous partners. It’s interesting to note that people do still seem to care about someone’s number of previous partners — but not as many people as in 2005.?

Would you ever consider having a friendship based primarily on sex, with no intentions for love, romance, or long-term commitment?

Casual sex seems to be more commonplace today than it was in 2010, with an 11% percent increase in the number of people who were thinking about a purely sex-based relationship. So 75 percent said they were looking for love, but 61 percent also said they’d consider a relationship built around casual sex.

The data leaves us with more questions than answers. Are people today more conservative concerning relationships, or more open? They don’t seem to care about the number of previous partners someone has had, but they’re less likely to consider sex on a first date. Most of them say they’re looking for love, but they’d also consider a relationship based primarily on sex. OkCupid has dubbed these befuddling modern dating trends ‘casually conservative — or is it ‘conservatively casual’?